Capt Amarinder urges PM Modi to revert to 90:10 sharing pattern for agricultural projects

Amarinder has said that “the target of doubling farmers’ income in five years appears almost unachievable unless urgent steps are taken to redirect the focus and provide the essential institutional support”.

Chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting that sharing pattern between Centre and states be reverted to 90:10 for various agriculture-development programmes.

States have now been asked to contribute 40%, even though they lack financial resources and capacity to alleviate farmers’ distress on their own, with Punjab being no exception. (HT File)

States have now been asked to contribute 40%, “even though they lack financial resources and capacity to alleviate farmers’ distress on their own, with Punjab being no exception,” he observed, said a spokesman here on Wednesday.

Stressing also the need to promote crop diversification, Amarinder has said that “the target of doubling farmers’ income in five years appears almost unachievable unless urgent steps are taken to redirect the focus and provide the essential institutional support”.

Underlining Punjab’s role as the “epicentre” of Green Revolution in the country, the CM said that while there had earlier been huge increase in productivity of foodgrains and in arable area under wheat and paddy, the production potential of these crops with the currently available technology had been “fully exploited”.